WHAT? Smoky sipper. Enjoyed a cup of lapsang souchong with your afternoon cookie lately? If you’re like most Americans, the chances are slim. Lapsang souchong is a strong black tea with an assertive smoky flavor that has been likened to the taste of single-malt Scotch whiskey and cigars. Real lapsang souchong hails from Mount Wuyi in the Fujian province of China and is quite rare, but the name is often applied to black and oolong tea leaves of indiscriminate origin that have been treated with smoldering pinewood ash. According to legend, the smoking process was discovered by accident in a small village during the Qing dynasty when a group of soldiers took over a tea factory filled with fresh, unprocessed leaves. By the time the townspeople were able to get back into the factory, they didn’t have enough time to dry the leaves before market day, so they used pinewood fires to

At the critically acclaimed Aldea, George Mendes serves refined interpretations of the traditional Portuguese dishes that graced his family’s dinner table. One of our favorite upgrades is the garlic and paprika–loaded shrimp alhinho. We asked Mendes for the recipe, and he was kind enough to share this decadent lobster and artichoke version. Hopefully it will earn a spot in your dinner rotation, too.

Even after they’ve been exiled from Hell’s Kitchen, asked to pack their knives and go, or simply chopped, chefs who’ve appeared on TV’s reality cooking shows—and lost—are often just as popular as those who have won. We spoke with former cooking competition contestants to find out how their moment in the spotlight, however fleeting, impacted their careers. See what they had to say here.﻿

Though spring is officially here, it may be awhile before the weather completely catches up with the calendar. Take a seasonal leap in the kitchen with this cuisine-spanning salmon dish, which features punchy papaya salad, panisse (a lightly fried chickpea flour cake from France’s Nice region), and nuoc nam (a pungent fish sauce used throughout Vietnam).

WHAT? Apple of their eye. In Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables, Elizabeth Schneider describes this knobby, gray-green fruit as "stunning," and writes that it tastes "heavenly." Mark Twain was also a fan. Upon trying the sweet, delicately flavored fruit, he pronounced it "deliciousness itself." The cherimoya originated in the Caribbean, and was conveyed around the world by Spanish and Portuguese colonists. Its leaves, roots, and seeds have long been used in traditional medicine as a cure-all for any number of ailments from diarrhea and itchy skin to fainting spells and rheumatism; it was also used to repel lice. We prefer to eat it. The flesh is white, pulpy, and slightly granular, and its taste has been likened to pineapple, banana, papaya, vanilla, and custard. In fact, cherimoya also goes by the name custard apple, as do several other closely related tropical